like a bridge over troubled water.

let's look at it in a very simple way. forget the political or legal implications. let's just go primitive.

by not having the "scenic" bridge built, the government owes the contractor RM 100 million... for a bridge that wasn't going anywhere. it also looked rather dinghy, but again...it wasn't going anywhere. talks with singapore had been straddled for almost a decade, and it was probably apparent in the minds of those involved that nothing was coming out of it. there already is a second link to the island. and again, there was no bilateral stamp of approval.

i suppose that the government was confident of it being built, otherwise there wouldn't have been the risk of the compensation package being so high, no?

no.

a bridge that doesn't go anywhere. maybe we could've gotten off at a point and spat into the singaporean side of the water that separates us, but besides that...there would've been no point. trading sand and airspace for the bridge to be built? doesn't sound like our singaporean friends are open to the idea without benefits...then again, they're singporeans. the miserly bastards. but it's got nothing to do with them, funnily enough.

RM 4.4 billion is meant to be saved from taking away the subsidy. even more money will be saved when the price of fuel eventually pars it way to international prices. but despite the massive injection from these savings, it seems that the government can't quite make up its mind over projects...or, at the very least, investigate the feasibility of such projects.

RM 100 million for a bridge that doesn't go anywhere. and now, RM 100 million is going to be spent on the new CIQ complex (which was originally a part of the un-scenic "scenic" bridge had it been connected to singpoare) to link it to the causeway. yes, a six-lane dual carriageway sounds fantastic, samy. but that's pretty much RM 200 million thrown into the sea. literally.

who profits? the contractor, of course. coz everyone needs money, even the big people...and when the big guns need money, they take it out on the little people. namely, us.

i'm sure that if things had worked out, we would've had a beautiful island crossing by the end of this decade. and i'm sure that in pure malaysian fashion, our government was impulsive to get the ball rolling. it was a rather large ball, though. RM 100 million might not seem like much, but it definitely could've been better spent. your tax dollars at work.

for a bridge that wasn't going anywhere.

it's been two big fumbles, with the sudden petrol hike and the bridge. i doubt that this is going to invoke cries of anarchy to it becoming v for vendetta, but it's just not right. we're being shortchanged again.